The present disclosure relates generally to communications networks, and more particularly, to Node Port (N_Port) ID Virtualization (NPIV).
Demands for increasing link speeds and computing speeds have driven a variety of specialized computer networking architectures. One such networking architecture, which is widely utilized in Storage Area Networks (SANs), is Fibre Channel (FC). Conventional Fibre Channel networks are deployed with a large number of FC switches connected to core devices. As the number of ports in the fabric increases, the number of switches also increases, which can result in a dramatic increase in the number of domains. Node Port Virtualization (NPV) addresses the increase in the number of domain IDs needed to deploy a large number of ports by making a fabric switch appear as a host to a core FC switch and as a FC switch to servers in the fabric.
The core FC switches allocate an FC address, referred to as a Fibre Channel Identifier (FCID), to each server and disk. NPIV allows for the assignment of multiple FCIDs to a single N_Port (end node port on the FC fabric). NPV makes use of NPIV to have multiple FCIDs allocated from the core switch on an N_Port Proxy (NP_Port) at the NPV device.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the drawings.